Hunting composite vector resonances at the LHC: naturalness facing data

We introduce a simplified low-energy effective Lagrangian description of the phenomenology of heavy vector resonances in the minimal composite Higgs model, based on the coset SO(5)/SO(4), analysing in detail their interaction with lighter top partners. Our construction is based on robust assumptions on the symmetry structure of the theory and on plausible natural assumptions on its dynamics. We apply our simplified approach to triplets in the representations (3, 1) and (1, 3) and to singlets in the representation (1, 1) of SO(4). Our model captures the basic features of their phenomenology in terms of a minimal set of free parameters and can be efficiently used as a benchmark in the search for heavy spin-1 states at the LHC and at future colliders. We devise an efficient semi-analytic method to convert experimental limits on sigma x BR into bounds on the free parameters of the theory and we recast the presently available 8 TeV LHC data on experimental searches of spin-1 resonances as exclusion regions in the parameter space of the models. These latter are conveniently interpreted as a test of the notion of naturalness.

Effective Lagrangian Perspectives on Electroweak Symmetry Breaking

Andrea Thamm

We use an effective Lagrangian approach to address the question of the dynamics of electroweak symmetry breaking in the Standard Model (SM) and its relation to the hierarchy problem. Composite Higgs models provide a solution by describing the recently discovered Higgs-like scalar particle as a composite pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson that dissolves into its constituents above a certain high energy scale. We discuss many features of the low energy description of composite Higgs models and present an explicit realisation in a flat extra dimension showing explicitly that top partners with masses below 1TeV are expected in a natural theory. Naturalness requires New Physics not much above the weak scale and hence motivates the search for direct and indirect evidence of physics beyond the SM at the LHC and future colliders. As an indirect probe at the LHC, we propose a dedicated analysis of single top production in association with a Higgs boson to lift the degeneracy in the sign of the top Yukawa coupling. We move on to an extensive study of WW scattering, double and triple Higgs production at future linear colliders to estimate their impact on the parameter space of a strongly interacting Higgs boson. Direct probes of New Physics at the LHC include the search for heavy vectors and fermions. We introduce a model-independent strategy to study narrow resonances which we apply to a heavy vector triplet of the SM for illustration. We conclude by summarising current constraints and the expected reach of future colliders on the parameter space of a minimal composite Higgs model. This thesis is based on the papers in Refs. [1–4].

EPFL2014

Naturalness and Neutral Naturalness in the LHC Era

Davide Greco

We present two different approaches to solve the hierarchy problem of the Standard Model and to provide a consistent dynamical mechanism for electroweak symmetry breaking. As a first scenario, we follow the naturalness paradigm as realized in Composite Higgs theories, which conceive the Higgs particle as a bound state of a new strongly interacting sector confining at the TeV scale. We present a minimal implementation of the model and study in detail the phenomenology of vector resonances, which are predicted as states excited from the vacuum by the conserved currents of the new strong dynamics. This analysis allows us to derive constraints on the parameter space of Composite Higgs models from the presently available LHC data and to confront naturalness with experimental results. Motivated by the rising tension between theoretical expectations and the absence of new physics signals at the LHC, we consider as a second possibility the neutral naturalness paradigm and address the hierarchy problem by posing the existence of a mirror copy of the Standard Model, as realized in Twin Higgs theories. This new color-blind sector is the main actor in protecting the Higgs mass from large radiative corrections and is un-discoverable at the LHC, allowing us to push far in the ultraviolet the scale where the Standard Model effective theory breaks down and colored resonances appear. We present an implementation of the Twin Higgs program into a composite model and discuss the requirements for uplifting the symmetry protection mechanism also to the ultraviolet theory. After introducing a consistent Composite Twin Higgs model, we consider the constraints imposed on the scale where colored resonances are expected by the determination of the Higgs mass at three loops order, electroweak precision tests and perturbativity of the ultraviolet-complete model. We show that, although allowing in principle the new physics scale to lie far out of the LHC reach, these constructions need the existence of light colored top partners, with a mass of around 2-4 TeV, to comply with indirect observations. Neutral naturalness models may then evade detection at the LHC, but they can be probed and falsified at future colliders.

EPFL2017

Hybrid seesaw leptogenesis and TeV singlets

Majid Ekhterachian, Luca Vecchi

The appealing feature of inverse seesaw models is that the Standard Model (SM) neutrino mass emerges from the exchange of TeV scale singlets with sizable Yukawa couplings, which can be tested at colliders. However, the tiny Majorana mass splitting between TeV singlets, introduced to accommodate small neutrino masses, is left unexplained. Moreover, we argue that these models suffer from a structural limitation that prevents a successful leptogenesis if one insists on having unsuppressed Yukawa couplings and TeV scale singlets. In this work we propose a hybrid seesaw model, where we replace the mass splitting with a coupling to a high scale seesaw module including a TeV scalar. We show that this structure achieves the goal of filling both the above gaps with couplings of order unity. The necessary structure automatically arises embedding the seesaw mechanism in composite Higgs models, but may also be enforced by new gauge symmetries in a weakly-coupled theory. Our hybrid seesaw models have distinguishing features compared to the standard high scale type-I seesaw and inverse seesaw. Firstly, they have much richer phenomenology. Indeed, they generally predict new TeV scale physics (including scalars) potentially accessible at present and future colliders, whereas weakly-coupled versions may also have cosmological signature due to the presence of a light Nambu-Goldstone boson coupled to neutrinos. Secondly, our scenario features an interesting interplay between high scale and TeV scale physics in leptogenesis and enlarges the range of allowed high scale singlet masses beyond the usual similar to 10(9)-10(15) GeV, without large hierarchies in the Yukawa couplings nor small mass splitting among the singlets. (C) 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV2018

Naturalness and Neutral Naturalness in the LHC Era

Davide Greco

EPFL2017